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03 August 2017

Whenever chess pops up in my Yahoo News feed, I try to use it as the basis of a blog post.

In fact, that's not completely true. Since the beginning of 2016, I've accumulated Yahoo chess headlines at about the rate of one a month and have used only a few of them. Today I spotted another one, this time about Fabiano Caruana. While adding it to the collection of the others, I reviewed all of the headlines.

Which chess personality has been featured the most? Garry Kasparov is near the top of the list: twice for chess and once for his latest book on AI. The player who has received the most chess headlines is GM Caruana himself. Here's a visual list.

Here's the same list with links to the the original articles. All three are from businessinsider.com and were written by Matthew DeBord.

It's been a very long drought for Americans when it comes to the World Chess Championship. The last American to win was, famously, Bobby Fischer in 1972. Fischer defeated Boris Spassky in Iceland, but never defended his title. It was of course a long drought before 1972: in the modern era, post-1900, there had never been a World Chess Champion from the United States, prior to Fischer, and the only players who even had a shot after him were Robert Byrne and Gata Kamsky. Norways's Magnus Carlsen, the current WCC, is actually the first player from the West since Fischer to claim the title. Starting Friday in Moscow, the next World Championship cycle is beginning, with the 2016 Candidates Tournament.

The US Chess Championship and US Women's Chess Championship are underway in St. Louis.
On the women's side, 2015 champion Irina Krush is shooting for history and her 8th title, putting her just one behind Gisela Kahn Gresser, a mid-20th-century player who dominated the game in her era. Krush is currently trailing the leaders by half a point.
On the men's side, the field is phenomenally strong -- possibly the "strongest ever," according to Grandmaster Maurice Ashley, who dropped by Business Insider's offices before the tournament kicked off to discuss all things chess, including his historic induction into the US Chess Hall of Fame, the first African-American to be according [sic] the honor.

The Sinqufield Cup is underway at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, and once again, the world's most elite players have turned out to battle for the prize. The Cup is a stop on the Grand Chess Tour, which also includes tournaments in Paris and London and is intended to function as a sort of counterpoint to the World Chess Championship. The WCC has been won the last three times by Norway's Magnus Carlsen, who is once again the field at the Sinquefield Cup. In his first game, he's facing down American Fabiano Caruana, currently the number three player in the world -- and the number two in the US, behind Wesley So.

Credit for the photo of Caruana used in the first and third articles is given to Alina L'Ami.